st is in the
first rank; it is hardly necessary to add, that among performers
of her own sex she is unquestionably the very first in the
world. It is, indeed, only within a comparatively few years that
the claims of women to superiority as violinists have been
treated with anything better than sneers. And the supercilious
and intolerant spirit which dictated such treatment had at least
a much solider foundation than the narrow conservatism which
refused to admit women into the lists with poets, novelists,
sculptors, and painters: for power and force are the primal
conditions of the highest success as a performer upon the
violin, and most women would undoubtedly be weak players as
compared with most men. But the genius of art--who, after all,
is one and the same, whatever form the art may take--is no
respecter of persons; nay, more, he demands for his high tasks
those of every clime and rank, and of both sexes. And from each
and every one he asks a peculiar service which no other could
exactly render. And thus he has assigned to Madam Urso her own
functions as an _artiste_. There is no denying the remarkable
power and breadth of her style, which is far in advance of that
exhibited by the majority of the best male performers;--her
touch is at once as firm as steel and as soft as velvet; her
mere manual dexterity is extraordinary; and her intonations are
as faultless as the steadiest of hands and the correctest of
ears can make them,--witness, especially, her recent wonderful
playing of _cadenzas_ at a Harvard Symphony Concert. In all of
this Madam Urso may be said to be a man, or the equal and
compeer of man. But in the great expressive power to which we
have often referred as her chief title to the highest place, the
soul of the true and earnest woman finds its own exclusive
utterance; and we get a something of tenderness, of sweetness,
and of subtlety which is pre-eminently feminine. The world could
not afford to lose this, though great performers were twenty
times more numerous than they are. The age which has produced a
Dickens and a "George Eliot," a Holman Hunt and a Rosa Bonheur,
a Story and a Harriet Hosmer, must needs have added to the
scroll upon which the titles of Joachim, of Vieuxtemps, and of
Ole Bull are inscribed, the name of

CAMI